Archive for the ‘Social media’ Tag

Technology usage is not immune to the lifestyle changes motherhood brings. Moms put the focus on simplicity, convenience and multiuse technologies as they look to keep their families closely linked, according to a report from BabyCenter.

More than four in 10 US online moms said they wanted technology that could help them be a better mother. Millennial respondents were much more likely than their Gen X counterparts to seek maternal empowerment through technology and more likely to say they had been helped by tech.

US Mothers on Technology

That help might be managing the family schedule, taking care of the family’s health and wellness, recording and sharing photos and videos, and making the most of mom’s time—all top objectives of mothers that dramatically increased in importance when they had children.

Smartphones and PDAs are a boon for mothers on the go, 69% of whom use them to coordinate and schedule family activities

US moms daily activities

Home networking and digital convergence are also helpful to moms. Forty percent told BabyCenter that technology convergence in the home makes technology more useful for mothers, and 72% said they are now more likely to use their laptop in the kitchen or living room so they can be around their children while they go online.

“Becoming technologically fluent is a must for moms juggling the ever-growing demands of household responsibilities,” said Tina Sharkey, BabyCenter chairman and global president, in a statement. “Tech brands who truly listen to moms and deliver products that empower them and make their lives a little easier will no doubt have the competitive edge in a very crowded marketplace.”

The majority of companies in a recent survey are planning to invest more in social media next year but are struggling to find the time and resources to manage their activity, according to a report produced by Econsultancy and bigmouthmedia.

The “Social Media and Online PR Report” provides detailed information about how companies are using online PR tactics and social media sites – including Facebook and Twitter – for marketing and customer service.

The research found that an overwhelming majority of companies (86%) surveyed plan to spend more money on social media in 2010, and a further 13% are planning to keep the same level of budget.

How can adding a blog to my website help my business? this is a great question to ask, and the answer is simple. Blogs allow you to communicate better with your target market and can build traffic to your web site, not to mention the fact that search engines such as Google really love blogs because of the frequently updated content they contain.

With more than a third of Internet users now visiting social media networks each month, a lot of time is spent in gathering information, and now it appears that 40% of email users visit social media sites to gather information about products and recommendations from friends. A recent study called “Emails Gone Viral” by Silverpop found that shared emails delivered an average increase of reach of 24.3%, and that figure is due to increase as sharing becomes more mainstream in the future.

Social media sites do have an impact on the increase of opens for emails as well with at least an additional 1% of opens for emails when shared on network sites.

So when does your email have it’s biggest impact on social media users? the majority of opens and clicks on shared emails is within the first few days and the last click about 7 days after posting, although activity on an email was extended as long 44 days.

US corporations have come to value social media network sites very highly over the past 12 months, particularly in building their company’s brand and enhancing the relationship with their clients.

According to research conducted for the “Social Media: Embracing the Opportunities, Averting the Risks” white paper in July,more than 8 out of 10 management,marketing and HR executives who responded to the survey claimed that brand building and relationships were the key advantages of a social media strategy in business. The other area that is considered a positive with social media, is recruitment, with 69% of company’s using networks and social media sites to recruit new staff.

An interesting sideline to the report is the fear that some US executives have over privacy issues with social media sites such as MySpace and Facebook, 40% of these executives expressed concern over security and 37% had concerns over employee productivity.

Security and confidentiality of information is by the far the biggest concern of top level managers, the very nature of social media is in itself about the sharing of information, and this is what most executives fear their staff will be doing, sharing personal and company information to the masses.

60% of companies studied in February 2009 by software company Sophos,had blocked access to social media sites due to fears of confidentiality, with 68% of the senior managers surveyed, believing employees were sharing to much information via social networks.

One of the areas we cover at Social Media College when creating a company social media strategy, is confidentiality, and when running workshop sessions with staff this is given a high priority.

If you or your company are considering a social media strategy, enrolling in our executive coaching courses is a must. The courses are designed for senior executives and provide a thorough background on all areas of social strategy.

I guess some of you may think I sit around all day researching social mediatrends, well if you do, you’re right. To really stay on top of all the changes that happen in social media, it really is important that we stay up to date on the ever moving landscape. So here is another little juicy gem for those marketing folks out there looking at using the social media networks as advertising mediums.

It’s important to understand the searching and viewing habits of the audience you’re trying to impact, and social media sites are changing the way we search on line, and as marketers, relying on this information and understanding where and how your audience views or searches for information on social media sites is vital.

So with that in mind, which are the best days to run your adds or banners, and which days generate the best click thru rates for advertisers? Some new research out today sheds some light on this and here are the results for you. Content posted on Facebook based brand pages has a higher than average click thru rate on a Tuesday, the average click thru rate on Tuesday is 9.89%, the highest of any day. Wednesday follows closely behind with click rates of 9.87%.

Friday and Saturday had the lowest click rates with a very measly 2.67% on Friday and 2.7% on Saturdays. If you take all the days into account, click thrus for Facebook brand pages average 6.76%. This average is lower than Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but still much higher than average CTRs for display advertising across social networks in general, including Facebook itself.

So really what this research means, is that certain days of the week are better for launching a product promotion, and by really understanding how consumers use social media sites, you and your company can start to target where you’ll get the best return on your investment.

In a nut shell, what this all means, is that you really need to have a well thought out communication strategy for updating your Facebook brand page and understand when to create promotions to get optimum response.

Response to your marketing on social media sites is better early in the week then dwindles and picks up again on Sundays.

In my next post, I’ll cover the results of the latest eye tracking study for you, that is a very interesting result.

About the data:The sample data reported is compiled from nearly 200 million fans impressions on Facebook pages over a five-month period (March – August 2009).

Hi everyone, welcome to this my new blog about social media. I’ve started this blog to assist you in understanding social media and to allow you to find and attend training courses on social media.

Coming up soon will be details on our new training course called “Bloggers Bootcamp”, this will be a hands on training course on all you need to know about how to start your own blog,write effective blog posts and generate traffic to your blog via the major search engines.

You can also visit my other blog Mike Andrew’s Real Estate Tips & Technology at www.mikeandrewrealestate.com for lots of great advice on Internet marketing.

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Social Media College

Hi and welcome to Social Media College. On this blog you will find information on up coming training courses and boot camps and information about social media and how you can use this medium to drive leads for your business. I hope you enjoy your stay here.